Forsaken
by snowzone5
Summary: One shot. A quick spotty mileven based recount of s1 dealing with Eleven's vulnerability. A recount of s2 from Hopper's guilty pov and love of Eleven. Eleven discovering she was betrayed by him. Rated T, but Hopper swears :)


**Lost**

Eleven had never been this scared. She had never been this cold and wet. She had never been this hungry. She had never been this lost.

And she had never been this lonely.

She escaped from the bad men. They were cruel, they hurt her almost every day. Finally when papa wanted her to… to do bad things to her kitten. She just couldn't, she loved her kitten. It was the only thing she loved at the bad place. How could she hurt something she loved?

She couldn't, so she used her abilities and escaped into the rain.

At first the rain felt glorious on her shaved head, a new, a _good_ sensation. But the rain got colder the longer she let it fall on her, and now she was desperate to be warm and dry.

She wandered through the woods, the soaked leaves making her feet numb. She was crying, the rain washed away her tears as fast as they fell from her eyes. All she wanted now was to be warm and dry, even… even if maybe it was from the bad men.

But there was nobody around, nobody to help her. Nobody.

When she heard the noise, she was hopeful. The three boys who found her looked just as cold and wet as she was. Two of them were arguing, but the middle boy was just staring at her.

Their lights were blinding her and he yelled at them to stop.

He looked like he was worried about her. He took of his jacket, the one that had been keeping him warm and dry, and put it around her. He kept asking her if she was ok, but she was too cold to speak, her teeth chattering when she tried and she really didn't know a lot of words anyway. Just what she had been able to pick up at the lab.

He took her hand and told her not to be afraid. She liked him. He was kind.

They went down some stairs into a room . She didn't know where it was but it was warm, and dry and without the bright lights like the lab.

He gave her clothes, they weren't pretty clothes, but they were soft and warm and dry. She tried to put them on right away, but there was yelling and arms flapping. She didn't know what was going on, but the boy led her to another room.

Privacy.

Eleven smiled to herself. She was never able to get changed alone at the lab, she felt bad every time they made her change in front of them. She thought they would do the same but these boys stopped her from doing that.

And the one boy with the gentle eyes, the one she liked, brought her to another room where she could change without being seen.

The other boys left, and the one she liked stayed, he made her a bed that was dark, warm and safe from the storm.

She _did_ feel safe. The boy with the sweetest eyes she'd ever seen, made her feel safe.

He said his name was Mike, and he would call her El, if that was ok. She nodded, it was a much prettier name than a number, but she didn't mind if Mike called her Eleven. It made her warm inside whenever he spoke to her.

She didn't know their friend was missing. There were some bad days when she tried to help find him. Mike was mad at her, twice. She started to feel scared again. She really wanted to help Mike.

She hurt herself trying to help them. She had what papa called headaches, and her nose bled. A lot.

She had found Will in the void, his mom by her side the whole time. Everyone seemed better that they knew where he was. But the Upside Down was a bad place. A very bad place.

Mike promised to take her to a snowball, he tried to explain what it was, and who you went with, but it was like he didn't have the right words.

And then he kissed her. She was caught by surprise, his lips were so soft and warm. Mike, the boy she liked, had kissed her. He liked her!

* * *

 **And Found**

"then I'll tell you... tell you where your little science experiment is."

And just like that Jim Hopper had forsaken a little girl he didn't know. "Not my circus, not my monkeys". His conscience was clear.

That didn't stop him from drinking himself into oblivion that night, after Will was safely home. It didn't stop him from puking his guts out the next morning with a vicious hangover.

It didn't stop him from thinking how this little girl had gone into the pool scared to death, already exhausted, to find Will. Then later sacrificed herself to save the Wheeler kid and his nerdy friends.

Jim Hopper didn't sleep well for weeks. The only sleep he got was from a bottle, and he knew he was going down a dangerous path if he kept that up.

He left, Eggos in a rangers box in the forest. He did that almost nightly, everytime he went back to put more in, the previous ones were gone. It was probably just an animal getting at them.

"This is bullshit", he would say to himself. "Did that magnanimous gesture, make you feel any better, Hopper? Two fucking waffle's for christ sake? You might have just as well killed her yourself, asshole."

That didn't make him feel any better either. It didn't make him sleep any better. It didn't make him sleep at all.

But then one of night after making the futile attempt in the cold he heard a rustling behind him, he kept going to the truck. Finally he turned around.

He saw her and even though she was wearing obviously stolen clothes, he went over, got down on one knee, ripping off his jacket and encircling her in it. "I've got you."

When she leaned forward and hugged him tightly saying "thank you" Jim Hopper's heart broke into a thousand pieces.

They ended up at the cabin, he told her it was her new home, he even danced for her. Ok, calling it dancing was debatable, but it made her smile.

After betraying her and all his ineffectual attempts to make himself feel better, he made the girl called Eleven smile. If Jim Hopper had died that night, he would have died a happier man. He didn't and they cleaned up the cabin together over the next few days

He protected her from that psychotic son of a bitch Brenner. He taught her new words to help with her vocabulary. He fed her more than just waffles, not culinary masterpieces for sure, but much better food.

He also kept her from the boy she loved. Hopper wasn't an idiot. He heard the way she talked about the Wheeler kid, the crying jags she would go through because he wouldn't allow her to see him. She loved him. They were way too fucking young, but then again, she had telekinetic powers, so maybe her mind could handle the concept of that kind of love. Hopper didn't know anything anymore, and that scared the hell out of him.

And they argued. Nothing at first, but as the days went on. Days she accurately kept track of. They argued, increasingly more passionate. The last bad argument they had, Jim Hopper was mean to her. He felt like shit, but wanted to be resolute in his punishment.

Well, he would stick to his guns, not flinching with his decisions. He paid for it when she ran away. That was the second night Hopper remembered crying himself to sleep. It was better than drinking himself to sleep, but not much.

She had saved them all from those dog things when she came back for him. To be honest, Hopper wasn't sure that it was him she had come back for. The way the Wheeler kid and Eleven had hugged, both crying at the sight of each other. Hopper knew where his place was.

The Wheeler kid. He. Was. Pissed. His love for the girl, was worn on his sleeve. He hated to break up their moment, but Will had let them know the gate needed to be closed, and she said she could do it.

Hopper was terrified, that she wouldn't be able to close the gate. He was even more terrified that she would die in the attempt. If she died, Jim Hopper would die with her, either at the gate, or in his heart. It would be much better to die at the gate.

She closed the gate. At first he didn't really think she could do it. He knew she would though, because she wanted to get back to the boy she loved and to something of a normal life. The Mind Flayer was no match for this girl's love. It was so much dead meat if it stood in the way.

It never stood a chance.

Owens surprised the hell out of him. That little slip of paper was his second chance. He would _not_ fuck this up.

When he saw his newly adopted daughter gussied up for the Snowball, his heart twinged. She was beautiful.

Now it was the Wheeler kid who never stood a chance.

So, he let her go to the Snowball. He let her see the Wheeler kid anytime she wanted. He made sure they had appropriate alone time, not enough to get into any trouble, but enough to kiss all they wanted. He would _not_ fuck this up.

It all went to shit the day she walked into the cabin, and her eyes were red rimmed. She'd been crying. Hard. She looked so small and fragile.

When she said through tears, "I thought you loved me." Jim Hopper wanted to die.

He got down on one knee in front of her to get eye level, his hands on her shoulders, "I do, honey, what's the matter?"

He found out between her sobs that she knew he had given her up to what she called the "bad men". He had given her up to save the son of the women he was probably in love with.

There was no explanation he could give her that either of them would have been happy with. So he didn't even try. He wouldn't lie to her. Not anymore. He told her everything.

And she wasn't happy about it, but she understood.

When he had finished he could no longer stand it. He would be so lost without her. Jim Hopper broke down, "please don't leave me. I don't want to lose you."

"I told Mike he wouldn't lose me. You won't either, dad. I promise."


End file.
